a commitment to the future of Colombia

The road to the Final Report of the Truth Commission in Colombia has been long. It began with the signing of the Peace Agreements between the Colombian State and the extinct FARC guerrilla in 2016. The text agreed upon by both parties stipulated the creation of the Truth Commission, an institution in charge “of elucidating the patterns and persistence of the armed conflict and recognize and dignify the victims in the country and in exile who suffered its consequences”.

A large target. The Commission analyzed the Colombian conflict between 1958 and 2016, in less than four years. To do this, the body began its tasks in 2018 and this Tuesday it will present “the most important product” of that process “of listening, clarifying and contrasting.”

The Commission’s tasks were framed within the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition, now known as the Comprehensive System for Peace. It is a “transitional justice mechanism to determine what happened in the armed conflict through measures of Justice, truth and search for people considered missing.”

The act of this June 28 has been cataloged as the “Event”, as it will be the day on which the Commission makes its “legacy” public for the first time. One that not only contribute to clarifying what happened in more than half a century of conflict, but also allow generating dialogue and greater awareness in Colombian society that transcends its disclosure.

A broad and plural listening process

The basis of the work of the Truth Commission was the “broad and plural” hearing. The Final Report collects the story of nearly 30,000 people. All of them from various actors in the Colombian armed conflict. They are the testimonies of “victims, family members, witnesses, armed actors, civilian third parties, businessmen, members of the Public Force, politicians, former presidents, artists, journalists, academics, public officials, representatives of organizations and, in general, any actor who is He came to give his version voluntarily.”

According to Commissioner Carlos Martín Beristain, the Final Report “is the result of a gigantic listening process carried out by the Truth Commission in Colombia and in that ‘Colombia outside of Colombia’, in exile. Through testimonies, through meetings for the truth, through public meetings in the most affected areas of the country.”

At the same time, an in-depth investigation was carried out on 730 cases and 1,195 reports of acts of violence during the armed conflict.

According to Angelika Rettberg, director of the Research Program on Armed Conflict and Peacebuilding at the Universidad de los Andes, for France 24, “it was a very broad process of listening, from very vast sectors. The Commission likes to highlight the thousands of people and the number of testimonies that it managed to accumulate.”

The political scientist assures that “in the face of a universe of millions of victims, which are more than nine million people, and after several decades of conflict, it is very likely that some do not feel heard; others will feel that the collected version does not include them and the Report will have a stage in which it will have to gain legitimacy in many sectors”.

What does the Commission deliver this June 28?

There were several objectives of the Truth Commission. They ranged from clarify what happened during the armed conflict and offer a broad explanation to promote and contribute to the recognition of the victims, individual and collective responsibilities. In addition, it sought to promote “coexistence in the territories” and “promote structural transformations aimed at the non-repetition of the armed conflict.”

The report is a step towards its fulfillment. This will be divided into 10 chapters that collect a historical, territorial vision and that also investigates in a special way how women, the LGBTIQ+ population, ethnic peoples, young people, boys and girls of the country experienced all kinds of violence.

In addition, a chapter dedicated to the findings and recommendations for non-repetition is of special interest. The latter, according to the Commission, “seek to call on society, the State and the international community to create conditions and commitments that prevent the continuation and repetition of the armed conflict.”

As Luis Eduardo Celis, an adviser to the Fundación Paz y Reconciliación, affirms, they will challenge a large part of Colombian society: “I am convinced that A set of recommendations is coming for the State, for the school, for the media, for the political parties, for the churches. This is a huge effort.”

Óscar Castañeda Lasso, anthropologist and adviser to the Knowledge Directorate of the Truth Commission, stresses that it is necessary to wait for “the protagonism of the victims” and adds that it is they themselves “who propose the recommendations for non-repetition, They are advice from people who have already had to go through the armed conflict and who experienced great suffering.“.

The Commission’s recommendations are not mandatory for the State. However, they are a bet for Colombian society to understand the past and transform itself in the future by working on the implementation of what has been found by the entity.

This point is also its main challenge. Rettberg assures that the Final Report should “not be one more document on the shelves of historical truths that have been written in Colombia, which are many. But to have an impact on how the Colombian population understands its past and what it is willing to do to prevent it from happening again”.

The first step of several to go towards truth and reconciliation

Although the Truth Commission delivers its Final Report, its work does not end there. The next two months are decisive for its disclosure. Thus, the entity will attend more than 50 public events to share and promote the findings and recommendations in different places of the Colombian territory, but also internationally.

Commissioner Lucía González assures that in those months they will go through “the country and through all the mass media and community and alternative media telling the essence of what we have found and that the country must know and it serves to build those purposes for the future ” .

But beyond the next few weeks, the relevance and impact of the commission’s work will be seen in a more distant future. Rettberg points out that this Final Report runs the risk of being “received by people who are already convinced that a Truth Commission should be had.” So that, One of the challenges will be to question those people who have been raised as detractors or even those unaware of this entity.

Hand in hand with the Final Report, the Commission has created a digital platform that will have freely accessible content in different formats and languages, and will also digitalize analogous actions that are academic, cultural, and artistic activations.

For his part, Celis acknowledges that there are two fundamental areas for the report to transcend its dissemination: “We must ensure that this report and everything that this report presents to us enters the school in Colombia and enters the universities in Colombia, that all children, young people, are educated thinking about what Colombian society has been. And we need this to enter Colombian TV, that from now on documentaries, novels, series are made and that it lasts for a long time.

Favorable political environment after Petro’s victory

Due to the Covid-19 health emergency, the Commission had an extension of its term of office for a few more months. Several experts point out that it came at a crucial moment for the future of peacebuilding in Colombia.

According to Rettenberg, “it comes at a rather auspicious time, because It comes just after the electoral victory of Gustavo Petro, who has said since the campaign that he is going to promote all issues related to peace and reconciliation.”. Thus, the report arrives “at a time when it manages to be well received, more attention and much more impact than if it had been published earlier”.

Celis points out that its disclosure is part of “a democratic transition. “We are leaving an old authoritarian and exclusionary order. And we are reaching an order of greater democracy, we are beginning a transition towards a more quality democracy and towards a total peace effort.”

The next Government will have the task of making this report available to all citizens, analyzing and managing the recommendations to make it transcend beyond its mandate; the future that the Commission proposes with the truth and the victims as the backbone.